Dancing Black Hole Collision Unleashes a Flash of Light Brighter Than a Trillion Stars
The recently retired infrared observatory was the only telescope to spot a far-off flash of light that holds clues about the physical characteristics of these…
Spitzer Space Telescope
Final Mosaic by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope “Stars” the California Nebula
The image composite is just one of hundreds that the infrared observatory produced during its 16 years in space. Five days before NASA’s Spitzer Space…
Astronomers Measure Wind Speed on a Brown Dwarf for the First Time
Astronomers have used the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to make the first measurement of…
NASA Measures Wind Speed on a Brown Dwarf 200 Trillion Miles Away
Not quite planets and not quite stars, brown dwarfs are cosmic in-betweeners. Learning about their atmospheres could help us understand giant planets around other stars….
Parallax Microlensing Free-Floating Stars in the Milky Way’s Bulge
The path of a light beam is bent by the presence of mass, as explained by General Relativity. A massive body can therefore act like…
It’s Lights Out for One of NASA’s Great Observatories – Heartbreaking Goodbye
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope Ends Mission of Astronomical Discovery After more than 16 years studying the universe in infrared light, revealing new wonders in our…
Major Meltdown for Hottest Planet: Even Molecules Are Torn to Shreds
In the scorching atmosphere of exoplanet KELT-9b, even molecules are torn to shreds. Massive gas giants called “hot Jupiters” — planets that orbit too close…
Earth-Size Habitable-Zone World Found by NASA Planet Hunter [Video]
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be…
Astronomers Build Incredible 3D Visualization of Exploded Star Using NASA’s Great Observatories [Video]
Movie Dissects the Nebula’s Intricate Nested Structure In the year 1054 AD, Chinese sky watchers witnessed the sudden appearance of a “new star” in the…
Evolving Mystery of Stellar Evolution Explored in Perseus Molecular Cloud
This image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Perseus Molecular Cloud, a massive collection of gas and dust that stretches over 500 light-years across….
Jack-o-Lantern Nebula Spotted by Spitzer Telescope
A carved-out cloud of gas and dust looks like a celestial jack-o’-lantern in this image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. A massive star — known…
Starry Region Bursting With Bubbles and Bow Shocks Spotted by Spitzer
This infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows a cloud of gas and dust full of bubbles, which are inflated by wind and radiation…
Sixteen Incredible Images for Spitzer’s Sweet 16
NASA launched its Spitzer Space Telescope into orbit around the Sun on Aug. 25, 2003. Since then, the observatory has been lifting the veil on…
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope Gets a Rare Look at the Surface of a Rocky Exoplanet
A new study using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope provides a rare glimpse of conditions on the surface of a rocky planet orbiting a…
Perfectly Sideways Galaxy Spied by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope
This image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope might look like a lightsaber floating in space, but it’s actually an entire galaxy viewed on its side….
Hubble and Spitzer Identify the Atmosphere of Mid-Size Planet
Two NASA space telescopes have teamed up to identify, for the first time, the detailed chemical “fingerprint” of a planet between the sizes of Earth…
Spitzer Space Telescope Captures Amazing Stellar Family Portrait
In this large celestial mosaic taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, there’s a lot to see, including multiple clusters of stars born from the same…
Spitzer Reveals Clues to How Ancient Galaxies Lit up the Universe
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed that some of the universe’s earliest galaxies were brighter than expected. The excess light is a byproduct of the…